


to be seen

by tkreyesevandiaz



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: Anxiety, Caring Eddie Diaz, Caring Evan "Buck" Buckley, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Eddie Diaz Needs a Hug (9-1-1 TV), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Married Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz, Nightmares, POV Eddie Diaz, Tumblr Prompt, Worried Eddie Diaz, Worried Evan "Buck" Buckley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25888546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tkreyesevandiaz/pseuds/tkreyesevandiaz
Summary: It was exhausting.It wasn't familiar to him, this numbness that settled over his skin and bones. The heaviness of each muscle fiber, weighing him down in progressively smaller increments until Eddie thought he’d never get up again.They’d come far too close today.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz
Comments: 35
Kudos: 202





	to be seen

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I know I said these were supposed to be short drabbles but it's now a whole thing xD I'm going through a phase where my writing is the worst thing in the world to me, but I hope y'all like this.
> 
> This was requested by @dracocheese on Tumblr for a sensory prompt list. Thank you, I hope you like it!
> 
> Thank you Kat and Chey for listening to me SCREECH about this.
> 
> **52\. Exhausted numbness after crying**

It was exhausting.

It wasn't familiar to him, this numbness that settled over his skin and bones. The heaviness of each muscle fiber, weighing him down in progressively smaller increments until Eddie thought he’d never get up again. 

They’d come far too close today. 

It wasn’t anything new to Buck and Eddie; they ran into buildings that had no stability, routinely put themselves into situations where one faulty screw could plummet them to their death. They _met_ on the job, they knew what they were getting into when they formed this family.

Somehow, still, that knowledge didn’t make anything easier. 

The door creaked open with a low groan, a sliver of light falling at the floor by Eddie’s feet. He looked over the top of his knees at the shadow of his partner’s body, the one he was more familiar with than his own. He could trace each dip and divot of the silhouette, reach out to dip his fingers in the inky proof of Buck’s existence — proof that he’s still here, with him.

“Eddie,” he whispered. 

“Just...I know.” He closed his eyes, feeling Buck settle down next to him on the floor. 

The worn hardwood had become a sort of reprieve for Eddie with each progressing nightmare. No desert, no burning building, no collapsed tunnel was going to have a cold, dry floor. None of those things were stable enough to take his weight without any give. None of those things were going to have scuff marks that decorated the wood with the proof of a well-loved home. It went a long way in helping him realize that he was safe in his home, not fighting for his life.

His body had begun to numb from sitting in the same position for what felt like hours. It probably hadn’t even been more than twenty minutes, but he couldn’t bring himself to move from the only place that was keeping him tethered to reality. He stared blankly into nothing, images flashing across his mind, each breaking his spirit over and over. 

Eddie’s head felt too heavy for his neck, as if it wasn’t worth keeping up and the salt from his tears had crusted on his face in ridges painted with his anguish. His eyes were sore beyond anything he’d ever felt as he blinked hazily at Buck. 

Buck, who’d come to sit in front of him, looking at him with worry Eddie couldn’t comprehend was his for the taking. After a lifetime of worrying about everyone, to have someone — someone as open-hearted as Buck — worry _for_ him was a privilege Eddie didn’t quite know what to do with.

Lifting a hand, Eddie held his breath as he pressed it to Buck’s chest. The drum of his heart beat steadily under his palm, Buck’s hand lifting to cover his own to press it tighter to his body. Their rings glinted together in the dim light coming from the window, a fractured part of Eddie slipping back into place at the sight.

“I won’t go anywhere you can’t follow,” Buck said quietly. 

The past four years flashed before Eddie’s eyes, each painful memory of Buck getting hurt on and off the job, too many to match the statistics of firefighters getting injured on duty. It was exactly like Buck, shooting above average in everything. 

Today, his husband had nearly joined the statistics of firefighters losing their _lives_ on duty. And that was a realization Eddie would never be ready for — not now, not ten years later, not twenty years out.

It was one of those things he would never be able to bring himself to accept — the reality that one day, Buck might not be in his grasp anymore. For all that _he_ put himself in the line of danger, the other side of the equation was too painful to make sense of.

“I know,” Eddie croaked again, feeling hypocritical and silly for sitting here with his knees drawn up to his chest. “I just...keep seeing it.”

It’d been falling rock. 

To think that Eddie’s undoing was a chunk of stone, of all the things they saw on the job. But Buck had been standing right underneath the behemoth slab, and if Chim hadn’t pulled him out of the way in the nick of time…

He didn’t even want to think about how close he’d come to losing the love of his life today.

Eddie had been completely shaken up, even though Hen, Chim and Buck joked around that he was a danger magnet. Buck had pressed into his side for the rest of the shift, not drawing attention to the panic he knew was in Eddie’s eyes, but grounding him all the same. Still, he couldn’t get the ricochet of the rock hitting concrete out of his mind, the idea that his husband could’ve been trapped under it with a severe head injury too terrifying for him to fathom.

Buck sat in front of him, silently letting Eddie stare holes into his chest until he felt that he could see the pound of his pulse against his sternum, right where Eddie’s fingers were splayed across his pajama shirt.

“You weren’t wearing a helmet,” Eddie whispered. “And I woke up, and you were gone. I-I didn’t know…”

Buck exhaled, leaning forward to press his forehead to Eddie’s, bringing another wave of tears to his sore eyes. “I’m sorry, I went to get water, that’s all. And you know none of us had the foresight that that part of the cliff was going to crumble.”

“I know,” he repeated, feeling all too like a broken record, spinning crookedly with words that didn't make sense no matter where the needle sat. “It just...became too real, too fast.”

“What did?”

Eddie thought about how to explain this, pulling back from Buck to look him in the eye. “The possibility of losing you.”

He saw the realization dawn on his husband’s face, and somehow, it eased some of the jagged breath sawing in and out of his lungs. Buck knew what he was saying; he always knew — his husband saw him in ways no one else did. It made the vulnerable nights more bearable.

“I can’t promise you anything, Eddie. Just like you can’t promise me,” Buck started, tangling his free hand with Eddie’s. “But I get it, and I’m here. I’m not going anywhere if I can help it. Not without you.”

Eddie let out a choked sound, unfolding his stiff legs to pull Buck to him, uncaring about how uncomfortable the position was. The weight of his partner in his arms, solid and unyielding as always, chased away the last dregs of his nightmare.

Buck tilted his head, feathering a kiss against his pulse. Eddie wondered if he could feel how it raced for him, how it jumped at every indication of Buck’s love.

“You want to talk about the nightmare?” Buck asked softly after a few minutes skipped by, arms still wrapped tight around Eddie’s back. 

His palms were a welcome weight, keeping him grounded with their warmth as he began to speak. “The noise of the rock crashing...and you standing below it — it just triggered me. That’s all I could see, because what if Chim hadn’t been there? How quickly could you have protected your head from that? What if...”

The lump in his throat got bigger, until Eddie felt like he’d choke on it.

“Hey,” Buck said, tipping his chin to look him in the eye. “You can’t let yourself live in the ‘what if’s,’ my love. Because being a firefighter, so much of it is just chance — possibility. What if you hadn’t been able to evacuate from that house in Doheny Park? What if you hadn’t gotten out of that well? What if I’d been up a little higher when that burning rope snapped? What if the cushion hadn’t inflated enough to catch us?” 

Buck was right. Eddie _knew_ he was right, and he’d lived with all of that for the past four years. He could count how many times he’d come close to leaving his son without parents.

“It’s just you facing it I can’t seem to get my heart to accept. The fact that all of that can happen to you, and I’ll have no choice but to accept it for what it is,” he admitted truthfully. Eddie had swallowed the bitter taste of this particular premise over and over, but somehow he never seemed to digest it. It never got easier.

Buck’s face softened as he pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Eddie, it’s the same for me. I get it, you know I do. And there isn’t a single thing I can say that’s going to make any of it easier. The only thing I can say is that I won’t give up on trying to come back to you, to Christopher — just like you won’t.”

“Just that is enough,” he said quietly, sliding his hand to cup Buck’s neck, kissing him properly. “I love you.”

His husband smiled into the kiss, pulling back slightly to drag his fingers up Eddie’s back until he was cradling his head. “Ready to get some sleep?”

Eddie stared at the brightness of that smile, the quirk of his eyebrows, the familiar warmth of those blue eyes. Buck so easily accepted him for what he was, but sometimes, Eddie wondered if Buck knew how much Eddie wanted all of him. It didn’t matter that he had the proof in the form of two strategically placed wedding bands.

“You know I’d never ask you to stop being a firefighter, right?” he asked, slightly regretting the question when Buck’s smile slipped. “I’m not sure why I thought to tell you that right now, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter how much I’m terrified that, God forbid, I’ll have to live without the love of my life, but it’s part of who you are. I’d never take that from you.”

He’d heard the stories from multiple firefighters, their partners leaving them because the job had such unstable hours at times, so many possibilities of things not working out. The idea that it’d happened to _Buck_ while he was so vulnerable, at a time where he didn’t even know if he’d be a firefighter again...

It made Eddie only more determined to make sure Buck knew that he’d never ask for him to quit. Not even during the worst moments had Eddie ever wished his husband wasn’t a firefighter.

“Yeah,” Buck said finally, giving him a half-smile, carding his fingers through the shorter strands on the back of his head, scratching lightly. “I do know, and I know it’s not just because you’re a firefighter yourself.”

“It’s because I know how much you love being able to help people. I _love_ the firefighter side of you and I don’t trust anyone else to have my back like you do,” he confessed softly, letting the words hang between them. 

That was another three admissions he didn’t know how to word, how to reassure him. Eddie could only hope that the words captured his conviction that he'd never ask Buck to choose between his family and his job.

When they’d started dating, it hung unspoken between them, the risk of having both of them on the same crew. One bad moment could destroy their family, and Eddie had fielded thoughts of changing stations or even careers more times than he cared to count.

“How’d you know…” Buck trailed off, but Eddie knew what he was asking. He’d made the assumption that Buck had thought along the same lines he did, especially while they were thinking of expanding their family, and from his husband’s reaction to his bringing it up, he’d hit the nail right on the head.

“Because I thought of it so many times through the years. After Shannon, after the well, after the apartment fire on Melrose. Every time I look at Chris, sometimes I can’t help but wonder,” he explained, wincing as he shifted position again. “I just assumed you thought the same.”

“I did,” Buck admitted. “I still do, especially after we got married. I know it’s not something you and I would ever do, but...”

“Yeah.” The risks of any job weren’t negotiable, and both of them knew that. “I wanted you to know that no matter what happens, I will never ask you to leave your dream job; I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I made you choose.”

“And I do. Thank you,” Buck whispered, leaning in to kiss him. They stayed still for a moment, just breathing each other’s scent in. “Let’s try to sleep?”

Eddie nodded, wiping a hand over his face and getting to his feet, not letting go of his grip on his husband even as they crawled back into bed together. He downed a glass of water Buck passed him before reaching for him, both of them curling into one another.

“I love you,” Buck spoke along his temple, holding him close, the words stroking his skin with all the conviction of their wedding vows. “You’re the love of my life, too, Eddie. I’m always going to come back to you. Always.” 

Eddie repeated the words reverently, running a thumb along his husband’s wedding ring as a lump of gratitude formed in his throat. 

They were both here, safe and sound, their son asleep in the other room — everything was okay. The numbness faded from his body, only the bone-deep tiredness pressing him further into his husband’s skin, knowing that Buck could hold him up in the moments Eddie couldn’t do it himself.

As they drifted off together, Buck’s heartbeat drumming steadily under his ear, fingers tracing soothing patterns on his back, Eddie relaxed at the privilege to be seen.

To be found.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and Comments make my day, so thank you to everyone who leaves them! I love hearing what you guys think, and anyone who takes time out of their day to comment has my heart and soul <3
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr at [zeethebooknerd](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/zeethebooknerd) or on Twitter at [tkreyesevandiaz](https://twitter.com/tkreyesevandiaz).


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